Just make it stop
How do you heal the pain of a tax bill bigger than you could even possibly imagine? Three words:
McDonald's Caramel Sundae.
And how do you make sure that the pain stays gone?
You say YES when the guy asks if it's okay if he gives you both caramel and hot fudge since the caramel is running low.
Smartass to idiot in 1 day flat
In high school I was smart. I knew what I was doing and I had confidence in my intelligence. I wasn't a perfect student by any means. I didn't give a speech at graduation, but I could have. I knew at the time and still today I believe that if I had wanted to I could have had a 4.0 GPA. I was just a bit lazy and I was much more interested in TV than textbooks. I did enough to get by and to get into decent colleges. I was never great at taking tests but my standard stupid mistakes here and there could have been overcome if I had set my mind to it. This I'm sure of.
Then I arrived at college. Suddenly I was surrounded by all of the people who did try a little harder and did end up on that stage at graduation, many without having to try very hard. Suddenly my professors had turned into Charlie Brown's teacher and I actually had to study. Of course I hadn't really developed good study habits in high school so I still was doing basically only what it took to get by. I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point my confidence took a nose dive (It was probably in Engineering 1. Damn 4 Tran!) . I started to loathe people who would complain about getting a 92% on an exam. In high school I was that person now I wanted to poke their eyes out. Luckily I studied Architecture. With each passing year of college I had fewer and fewer exams and more and more projects. With projects it became clear that if I put in enough time and sought the guidance of my professors there was no way to fail or at least no way to make stupid mistakes that I could beat myself up over. My slightly perfectionist nature could be harnessed into attention to detail instead of self loathing over a missed spelling or a carried 2.
It took a long time, but eventually my confidence started to come back. I started to remember what it felt like to think I was smart and to have faith in my ideas. I remembered that I actually could achieve the things I wanted to.
When I started Croatian classes my old confidence was fully restored. I knew a few things that others didn't. I had a better handle on Zagreb and Croatian culture than most, and my pronunciation was clearly the best in the class. I also had lost my fear of being labeled a nerd and I spoke up frequently in class with questions and comments. I appeared to be a top student. And I must admit that it felt great. Maybe a little too great.
On Monday we had our first exam. I didn't study all that much. Neither did anyone else. I took the exam and felt confident. A few hours later I realized I had probably screwed up a whole section. The next day I found that in fact I was right and in addition to that I had made a handful of outrageously stupid mistakes. I had even taken the time to read back through my exam after finishing and still I didn't catch any of these things. It took less than 24 hours for that black pit in the bottom of my stomach to open up and try to swallow me whole. It was a familiar feeling but not one I had expected to feel again. It was a feeling that had been easy to forget about but like a bad dream that you can't remember when you wake up it suddenly popped back into my mind and has been haunting me since. I guess that injury to my confidence all those years ago left a scar I hadn't noticed before. I'm getting over it, but I notice I'm not quite as likely to speak up in class when I think I know something. Others are catching up to my level and quickly exceeding it. I've re-learned a valuable lesson. Over confidence is a pretty dangerous thing to indulge in. I still think I'm doing well in this class and have the potential to do really well and learn a lot, but I will actually have to study. Imagine that!
Spring Has Sprung
We're finally getting a few days of Spring weather. They're predicting snow for the weekend but we're enjoying it while it lasts. Sunday consisted of breakfast with the inlaws a trip to the fresh market and a nice relaxing beer at an outdoor cafe. That took so much out of us that we had to go straight home and take a nap. So yeah...life is still good here.
For the first time in my life I actually feel like I have a shot at learning a language. Class is going really well. The teacher is great and I really like all of my classmates. Now I'm regretting that I won't be able to stay here for another semester. Of course we haven't gotten to any of the tough stuff yet so my tune may change in the next month or so.
A few classmates including the Finnish Katie Couric (on the left)
Teacher Ana.
Teaching is still going well. I'm still enjoying it most of the time, but the honeymoon is definitely over. It is really feeling like a job now especially since all of my classmates don't work and are always going for coffee and things while I'm working. But I really can't complain since I'm only working 16 hours per week.
Really not much else is new. My enthusiasm for this blog has clearly tapered off a bit, but I'll try to keep updating you all on what I'm up to from time to time.
Preoccupied
I was hoping to put together a thoughtful and hopefully interesting post this weekend but I've ended up being totally preoccupied by news.
This news in particular.
Serbians are crying murder, my first thought was suicide, the medical examiners will almost certainly say natural causes. Regardless of how Milosevic died, not many people are mourning today unless they are mourning for the Hague tribunal and Carla Del Ponte as their jobs have just become quite a bit more difficult.
Goodbye my love
So this past Tuesday was "Fat Tuesday" which means we are now almost a week into lent. Although I haven't really made a strong commitment to religion in my adult life I still like the idea of giving up something for lent. Last year it was chocolate and ice cream. That was tough, but this year may be an even bigger challenge.
Since I've been in Croatia, I've basically been justifying anything I want to eat, by telling myself that I can't get this kind of food in America so I should eat all I can while I'm here and I'm exercising a lot more anyway so I shouldn't worry about it. However, in the back of my head a little voice keeps saying, "It's only 10am you really shouldn't have that 4th cookie." And that voice has gotten loud enough that I've decided to silence it by starting a campaign for healthier eating that hopefully will last past lent.
So far it hasn't been going well. The numbers on the scale seem to be going down rather than up so it's really hard to say no to the chocolate bars that are crying out from the cabinet to be eaten. They just sound so sad. But there is one thing that I haven't eaten all week that I'm determined to give up completely for the duration of lent because it is the definition of unhealthy. This king of calories is burek. And not any burek, but the evil burek s sirom (burek with cheese). This is by far my favorite Croatian treat. It's basically a rope of super greasy pastry stuffed with nice fresh salty cheese and baked until the cheese dries into nice tender curds and the pastry oozes a few buckets of oil. I honestly can't imagine a more wonderful or satisfying junk food. But for now, I will just have to stare longingly at my burek from afar. Easter never seemed so far away.
